Sanctuary
by Kalsan
Summary: Life is pretty good as far as Thomas Randall is concerned, he's got a roof over his head and work he enjoys in a town that is really beginning to feel like home, but then Jim Brass learns of his existence and all of that begins to change.
1. Chapter 1

**~ SANCTUARY ~**

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own it.

**Chapter One**

Standing in front of the heavy wooden door, Thomas Randall brushed one handed at his straw-dust and soil encrusted workpants as he quickly scanned the small car park that serviced the White Horse Bar. It wasn't that long ago that the place was almost buried under, what was reported to be, one of the worst winter snowstorms that the state had ever seen but, looking around at the lot's hard-packed surface and the mixture of dusty Ford Rangers and Dodge Rams that currently inhabited the space you'd never have known it – spring had well and truly arrived and, with the need for his services picking up nicely, Tom was more than pleased to see it.

He'd spent the best part of the day doing what he could to rectify the damage that the harsh weather had dealt to old Mrs. Chandler's flower beds. From what he'd been told, the crisp, regimental lines of shrub roses had been her late husband's pride and joy and, though she'd never really shared his fascination with the plants, his widow had always done her best to ensure they received whatever care and attention they needed in a concerted effort to keep the garden going in his honor. Thomas was certainly no expert but after a morning spent pruning and fertilizing and most of the afternoon carting in and laying load after load of fresh mulch, he felt sure they at least had a fighting chance of survival and, with luck, would provide the old lady with the a more than passable display come summer.

Deciding that his clothing was as clean as he was going to get it, he pulled open the door and stepped in over the threshold pausing for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the bright artificial lighting of the old-fashioned timber clad bar. With the Beaverhead, Big Hole, Jefferson and Ruby rivers all nearby and horse trails crisscrossing their way from one end of the county to the other, the town got its fair share of tourists but most of those currently gathered at the White Horse were locals and Tom nodded politely to many of them as he limped his way through the maze of tables and chairs to his customary stool at the slab-top bar that dominated the westernmost wall of the large, low ceilinged building.

He'd barely settled himself on the well worn timber seat before an ice-cold Budweiser was pushed across the bar towards him and, looking up with a wry grin, he shot a wink of thanks at Louella, the White Horse's longest serving and, undoubtedly most popular, bartender. She'd always made a point of learning what it was her regulars liked to drink, how they liked it served and, most importantly, whether or not they were the type that needed her almost constant presence be it for service, conversation or both and she'd worked out Tom's needs quickly – a single bottle of Bud, absolutely no babysitting and, ten to fifteen minutes later, the change from the twenty he always used to pay his tab so he could be out the door and on his way with the minimum of fuss.

Wrapping his hand around the bottle, he took a long pull as he watched her wander off to the far end of the bar then swiveled his seat slightly so he could get a better view of the large LCD television that was mounted high up on the wall above the establishment's impressive array of liquor bottles. With the volume turned down, he couldn't hear a word of the weather report that was currently playing but the seven bright yellow suns that decorated the next week's forecast brought a smile of satisfaction to his lips – the better the weather, the better his prospects for more work and paying his way, especially with the long list of debts and favors he'd racked up over the last eight months, was priority one as far as Tom was concerned.

The picture changed as the local news gave way to a commercial break and he sipped at his Bud, grateful for the lack of sound, as an ad for a Dillon used car dealer morphed into a plug for funeral insurance and then into a plea for donations to aid the plight of starving third world orphans. He was almost two-thirds through the bottle by the time the news anchors reappeared on the screen and was tussling with the decision of what to have for dinner when his cell phone rang and, pulling it from his pocket, he thumbed the answer key and raised it to his ear.

"Randall."

"Hey, pal." The familiar voice of his friend, landlord and sometime boss instantly snapped Tom from his musings. "I know I said I wanted you out at the Baxter job tomorrow but there's been a change of plans; one of the suppliers screwed me over and forgot to add those four inch seal fittings to this week's order so I'm going to need you to head into Bozeman and pick the damn things up."

"That's a four hour round trip, Wade." Taken aback by the unexpected directive, Tom didn't bother to hide his dismay at the though of spending so much of the day stuck behind the wheel of his truck. "Isn't there anywhere closer we can get them?"

"If there was, I'd have gone and got them myself." Wade pointed out patiently. "I tried phoning around but-"

"Yeah, yeah, okay." Still annoyed, Tom sighed. "I suppose if I leave here early enough I can be back in time to-"

"Uh, actually..." Wade quickly cut him off. "I told the guy you'd be there about nine o'clock but apparently he won't have time to get everything together until lunchtime at the earliest so, unless you want to spend the whole morning sitting around a warehouse, getting there early isn't going to do you much good." He paused for a moment to let the news sink in before continuing. "So I thought, since you're going to have some free time, you could also stop by the printers for me while you're over there; I've got a load of new order and invoice books ready for pick up and I'm probably going to need them sometime in the next-"

"Invoice and order books?" Shaking his head at the words, Tom couldn't help but chuckle. "When are you going to join the rest of the civilized world and computerize your business?"

"When hell freezes over." It was his stock reply to a question he's been asked many times before but Wade took his friend's teasing words as a sign that he'd resigned himself to the trip. "So, you're good to go tomorrow?"

"Well, you're the one paying for my time so if you want me to drive to Bozeman then that's what I'll do." Checking his watch, Tom quickly wound up the call. "I guess I'll see you late tomorrow afternoon when I get back."

"Okay buddy; I'll see you then."

Jabbing his finger at the end button, Tom slipped the phone back into his pocket as he downed the last of his beer. Mindful of his leg, he eased himself off the stool and, after paying Louella, began threading his way back through the growing crowd towards the door and the car park beyond.

He never noticed the two men seated in one of the booths that lined the right hand side of the room but they'd certainly noticed him and, as Tom disappeared through the opening, the younger of the two raised a questioning eyebrow towards his companion.

"So, is he your guy?"

"Yeah, he is." Letting the breath he'd been holding escape in an almost juddering sigh, Jim Brass rubbed his hand roughly across his mouth as he mentally reviewed the last ten minutes and tried to make sense of what he'd seen. "I was beginning to believe that the next time I saw him he'd be laid out in a morgue somewhere." He shook his head, still not quite able to believe the day's events. "I sure as hell never thought he'd be hiding out up here."

"Well, I don't think hiding out is quite the right term." Leaning forward, Sheriff Joe Rankin rested both forearms on the table as he frowned at Brass's choice of words. "I think, as far as Tom's concerned, he's simply living his life like the rest of us."

"Guess he's got a shock coming then, huh?" Despite the circumstances, Jim's dry wit returned full force. "And so do some other people back in Vegas."

"He's got family down there?"

"Yeah, he has." Still staring at the now empty doorway, Brass frowned. "So what are we looking at here? Amnesia?

"I don't think so." Rankin said. "At least going by what Doc Warner was saying I don't. He's been flat out with patients all day today but he's clearing some time tomorrow to meet up with you so I guess he'll fill you in then. He wants Wade Armstrong to be there too; he's the guy that picked Tom up and hauled him back here last August." He cocked his head towards the vacant stool at the bar. "That phone call a minute ago was Wade making sure Tom wouldn't be wandering around town tomorrow and accidentally bump into you; the doc's not sure what'll happen when he comes face to face with someone who actually knows who he is so he thought it would be better to get him out of the way until the three of you have had a chance to talk."

"Four of us." Pulling his phone from his jacket, Brass flipped it open and stared at the keypad. "I can pretty much guarantee there's going to be someone else at that meeting." He shrugged. "Provided, of course, she can get up here in time." A sudden thought occurred and he looked up with a frown. "_You_ weren't worried about him seeing me?"

"I leave it to Doc Warner to worry about his patients welfare, the most important thing, as far as I was concerned, was getting a positive ID and I figured bring you in here to give me one would be worth the risk." With a sweep of his hand, Rankin gestured to the room at large. "As you can see, it gets pretty busy around this time of day so if Tom did happen to see you, he probably wouldn't get much more than a glimpse." He nodded towards Jim's phone. "So, you gonna to use that thing or what?"

"Yeah." With the shock of his discovery beginning to ebb, Jim Brass felt himself relax for, what seemed like, the first time in over eight months as he realized that his long search was finally over. "Yeah, I am." Scrolling through the list of saved numbers, he selected one and hit the call button as he prepared himself to spread the news that Gil Grissom was alive and well and living in Riverton, Montana.

TBC

**A/N:** A quick note to Shadow Play readers - as you've no doubt noticed, I'm having a couple of issues with SP just now (nothing to do with the story itself, it's all to do with my mindset at the moment) but I am working my way through it and hope to have it back on track and heading towards the finish shortly. In the meantime though, I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing patience.


	2. Chapter 2

**~ SANCTUARY ~**

**Chapter Two**

Rolling the Mitsubishi Outlander in against the curb, Sara peered out through the darkness to the front of the White Horse Bar. It was closed, of course, after all, Riverton was hardly Vegas but for the first time in what seemed like forever, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that her husband had been here just a handful of hours before – _was_ still here, somewhere, in this town – and that the nightmare she'd found herself trapped in was finally coming to an end.

She hadn't expected to make it up to Montana anywhere near as quickly as she had. The earliest available flight she'd been able to find had been the 5:30am out of McCarran but, thanks to some string-pulling by Ecklie and a judiciously timed phone call from the sheriff himself, the airline had managed to find her a seat on the 8:20pm flight so, just over seven hours after being roused from a fitful sleep by Jim Brass's triumphant phone call, she'd found herself standing, still shell-shocked by the news and full of barely suppressed excitement, at the Avis counter at Helena Airport.

The two hour drive south had tempered some of that anticipation; after all, according to everything Jim had told her, Grissom may not even know who she was. Brass hadn't quite been able to explain why through, the local sheriff's mention of 'amnesia that may not be amnesia' baffling both of them but the fact that they now had a definite location for him, that Jim had seen him and was more than happy to assure her that, apart from a limp, he appeared to be fit and well, was enough to be going on with for the moment - they had an 11 o'clock meeting with the doctor who'd been treating him so, no doubt, all would be revealed to them then.

Switching the Outlander's engine off, Sara sat cradled in the soft leather of the driver's seat as her mind tripped back over the events of that warm August morning almost nine months before… to the good natured teasing she'd endured when she'd turned down Nick and Greg's invitation of a late breakfast following a particularly grueling shift with the excuse that her husband was due home in just a couple of hours and she had every intention of being there when he arrived... to hurriedly picking up Hank at the sitter's and then racing to make it back to the condo in time... to the sound of the telephone that had started to ring at the exact same moment she'd slipped her key into the front door lock... to the very business-like tone of the Highway Patrol officer who'd asked her if she had any idea where her husband was... to the way her hand had shaken as she'd dialed Jim's number and the way that her voice had cracked when he'd finally picked up... to the hastily arranged flight that had whisked the two of them from one end of Nevada to the other... and, finally, to the scene of devastation they'd found themselves walking into; the twisted metal, the stench of burnt flesh and, pointed out by a sympathetic deputy, the long trail of blood drops that, it was later proven, marked Grissom's path away from the carnage and off into the stark desert landscape beyond.

Although pressed for both personnel and resources, the Elko County sheriff had sent out a search party almost as soon as they'd confirmed that Grissom was missing from the scene and, although almost four hours had passed since the incident had first been reported, there were high hopes all around that finding him would be a relatively simple task. With two deputies following the blood trail on foot and another pair roaming the area in pickups, that's exactly what it should have been but the blood disappeared at the base of a large rock roughly a mile and a half east of the wreckage and the only other sign they managed to find of him before daylight faded into dusk was the tattered remnants of his jacket – both sleeves missing and a large piece of the lining torn out – that had become tangled up in a stand of greasewood bushes.

Taking up a position at the side of one of the county's marked Yukons, she'd grasped tightly to Jim's hand as they'd both listened to arrangements being made for the renewal of the search at first light. She'd wanted them to continue on through the night, pleaded for it, in fact, but the sheriff had quickly refused citing the rough terrain and multitude of uncapped mineshafts that littered the area as reason enough to suspend the search – it was bad enough that her husband was out there, lost and injured; he was not about to exacerbate things by adding any of his men to the casualty list. Despite the afternoon's lack of progress, he was quick to assure her, his optimism remain high and with the added assistance of the helicopter he'd managed to secure coupled with the team of tracker dogs being transported up from Ely in the morning, he was positive that they'd locate Grissom safe and sound, or as near to it as possible, by lunchtime at the latest.

He'd seemed so confident, so sure of himself and the men under his command, that she'd wanted to believe him but, standing on the hard-packed gravel shoulder of US-93, staring out into the absolute darkness of the Nevadan desert, Sara couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Something wasn't right here, something about the way Grissom had apparently turned his back on the mangled wreckage and walked away; that _wasn't_ her husband - it wasn't part of his make up and it certainly wasn't part of his training - he'd _never_ have left those people – those bodies – alone the way he apparently had and that, almost more than the fact that he was still missing, had scared her most of all.

Quickly freed of their duties by Russell, Nick and Greg had driven in just before midnight; their arrival still marked in her mind as a whirlwind of bone-crushing hugs and whispered assertions that everything would turn out just fine. Knowing both men as well as she did, she'd half expected them to jump on Jim's bandwagon and begin urging her to either eat, sleep or preferably, to quote the homicide detective, both but, clearly sensing that that was the last thing she'd needed, they'd simply joined her at the roadside and sat in silent vigil for the remainder of that long first night. It was a gesture she'd appreciated probably more than they would ever know just as she'd appreciated the support, comfort and even mother hen act that Brass offered but, sitting there, surrounded by three of her closest friends Sara had never felt so alone in the whole of her life.

The shrill ringing of her cell phone jerked her back to the present and, sliding her hand across to the vacant passenger seat, she fumbled for the handset before flipping it open; a smile playing across her lips as she read the caller's identity on the small backlit screen.

"Hello Jim."

"I made a call and checked with the airline so I know that your flight arrived on time." There was a hint of weary impatience tingeing the detective's voice as he spoke but beneath that was something else - a definite lightening of his tone as if the tension and frustration that had been weighing him down for months now had finally begun to lift. "I don't suppose I'm going to win any prizes for guessing where you are, am I?"

"No, probably not." Reaching across to the cup holder, Sara snagged the large takeout coffee cup she'd picked up just outside of Boulder. "But you didn't seriously expect me to just drive by, did you?"

"I knew it would be hard, Sara but I was kind of hoping you'd have a little more self-restraint." His suspicions confirmed, Jim sighed. "I promised we'd to stay out of Riverton, remember; at least until we're sure Gil's on his way to Bozeman in the morning."

"And, as far as anyone here knows, that's exactly what we will have done." Prying the plastic lid from the insulated container, she stared at the now-cold contents for a moment before quickly deciding she didn't need a caffeine hit after all. "I just wanted to see it for myself, Jim; I needed to see where he'd been living, I needed to _be_ somewhere that I know he's been."

"I'm not sure three in the morning's the best time to do it but, I guess, it cuts down the chances of him catching sight of you before we're ready." For the first time since she'd answered, she could clearly hear the smile in his voice. "But you've seen it now so how about going with our original plan, huh? The motel I booked us into might not be exactly luxurious but I did pay for two rooms and I'm really going to be pissed if one of them stays empty all night." He sobered. "You sound tired, Sara and you're going to need to get some rest; I have a funny feeling that we've got a long day ahead of us."

All of a sudden, as if it had been simply waiting for the words to be said, a wave of fatigue swept through her and she realized Brass was right but, she reasoned, if she was tired, he had to be absolutely exhausted. Thanks to a short but particularly bloody gang war breaking out up in the alphabets, both of them had been forced to work doubles but, while she'd managed to eventually make her way home and fall into bed, he'd caught a flight north, hung around all afternoon to ensure Thomas Randall and Gil Grissom actually were one and the same and now, here he was, holed up in a motel just outside of Dillon and, no doubt, doing his best to stay awake while he waited for her to turn up.

"Of course, Jim; I bet we could both so with some sleep." Ashamed at her own unintentional selfishness, Sara was instantly contrite. "So give me twenty minutes and I'll be there, okay." Shoving the coffee back in the cup holder, she was reaching for her seatbelt when a sudden thought hit. "I did thank you, didn't I? For what you did for me today… for what you've done for me since this whole thing started; you promised me back then that you'd find him and bring him home and now you have."

"Well, he isn't home yet, remember." Brass countered, clearly embarrassed by the show of gratitude. "And, technically, I'm not really responsible for finding him, either; the right person to thank for that is the moron who almost ran a Winnebago off the road on the outskirts of Reno this morning – if it wasn't for him, we'd probably still be sitting back in Vegas wondering where the hell to look next."

"If the guys in Reno ever catch up with that driver I'll be more than happy to let him know just how much I appreciate the help but, as far as I'm concerned, it was all down to you." Snapping the seatbelt into place, she reached for the ignition and, twisting the key, listened as the Outlander's engine roared to life. "And, as far as Gil not being home is concerned, that's just a matter of time." Letting the car roll forward, she headed for the end of the street and the turn that would take her back out onto I-15. "Because, no matter what it takes or how long it takes, the next time I drive out of Riverton, I will _not_ be doing it alone."

TBC

**A/N:** You know, my goal for this chapter was to get it written and posted in a reasonably respectable timeframe but with the end of the financial year looming and what I thought was an annoyingly persistent pinched nerve in my neck (I found out this morning it's actually a herniated disc) things didn't quite go to plan. I'm determined to get back into a routine with it though and should be able to free up a lot more time once this week is done so bear with me and we'll see how we go. :)


End file.
